


build a roof for me (the wishing remix)

by evewithanapple



Category: Strange Empire (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 03:18:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4375199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/pseuds/evewithanapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robin observes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	build a roof for me (the wishing remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sanguinity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinity/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Stars Are For Wishing On](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4161747) by [sanguinity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinity/pseuds/sanguinity). 



There’s something odd about the lady doctor who examines her, but Robin can’t quite set a finger down on what. Something in the way she moves, flutters her hands, talks in rapid-fire bursts of patter is unlike anyone else Robin’s ever encountered. Of course she’s not _frightened_ \- there’s nothing scary about an odd person, not on its own- they’re just a bit off-kilter. Robin’s seen people with truly bad intentions before, and the nastiness always hangs off them like a bad smell. Kelly doesn’t believe it when Robin tells her, but she always knows if a person has good thoughts or bad ones. It’s just the way she sees things.

So she can tell that the lady doctor and her husband will bring no harm to them, and she doesn’t worry when Kelly goes to lift the locket. Kelly whispers behind her hands to her of how they’re going to find gold in the wagon somewhere, or jewels, or _something_ \- folks like these are too wealthy to be smart, and not smart enough to keep from toting their money around with them. Robin only nods absently. Her powers of perception don’t extend to telling how much cash a person’s carrying, so she leaves that part to Kelly. Her role in their double act is- has always been- to be small and fragile and wide-eyed, a pretty bird that people will coo over while Kelly’s got a hand in their pockets. She knows her role to perfection.

She also knows that the Lovings aren’t going to fall for it.

The man is one thing- kind-eyed and soft-spoken, and maybe they could make something of him if they were on their own. The woman is another. Her eyes are kind too, but they’re sharp, and they seem to size both Robin and Kelly up in an instant as she looks at them. Robin fights back a shiver. A woman like this could catch them both and have them up before a marshal with the snap of her fingers. Kelly was busy smiling dumbly at her, play-acting her role to the hilt (Robin’s usually the bait, but Kelly’s been known to play it too, when needs be) to notice, but Robin did. If Kelly wants to play this woman for all she’s worth- well, Robin thinks she might be worth a lot more than Kelly’s guessed. But she clamps her mouth shut and says nothing about it, because Kelly’s older and wiser (she says) and if she wants to ride out the Lovings’ offer for all it’s worth, then Robin won’t complain. Perhaps there’s some way to play it to their advantage, even with Mrs. Loving’s sharp, knowing gaze. It’ll just take her longer to figure it out.

Mr. Slotter now: _he’s_ bad news.

He carries it with him wherever he walks, and Robin feels her stomach turn the second he walks into the camp. This is a man who teeters on the knife’s-edge between calm and crazy, and he’s also the man they were meant to sell themselves to. He’s every groping pair of hands that ever passed over them, every drunk in a saloon who wanted them to come sit on his lap, every man who ever looked on them with profit in his eyes. She’s glad- for a fleeting moment- to have the Lovings’ protection, knowing as she does that Mrs. Loving knows as much as she does, that she sees this man for what he is. There’s no guarantee that they’ll stay out of harm’s way, but huddled under the protection of Mrs. Loving’s coattails, Robin thinks they might have a shot.

(She wonders if Mrs. Loving sees the way she does, or if there’s other ways of knowing that she hasn’t encountered yet.)

Of course, she hadn’t bargained on the raid.

Everything goes topsy-turvy for a while, so she holds tight to Kelly, because that’s what she’s always done: when trouble’s afoot, she stays close to her sister’s side, knowing that of all people, she can trust Kelly to keep her safe. It’s hard to feel safe, though, surrounded on all sides by dirty men and screaming women and ghosts hovering thick in the air. The whole clearing tastes of death now; anyone can feel it. Nor does she feel safe when they come under Mrs. Slotter’s care: though she says she won’t have them whoring, she doesn’t seem to have much in her either way that’ll prevent it. She follows her husband with her eyes, soft and liquid, and Robin knows that this is a woman in bondage to her own heart, who uses her husband as a compass and will do whatever it takes to keep him close. There’s more than a whiff of the amoral around her, too, though she doesn’t stink of cruelty the way Mr. Slotter does: just a survivor’s avarice. Robin can’t blame her for that. She and Kelly have survived by their wits long enough, after all, and though they’ve never taken up whoring out other girls, who knows what might have been in another life? Still, her sympathy doesn’t make her any less wary, nor does it make her less glad when she sees Mrs. Loving walk into the room.

Her first impulse is to dash over and throw her arms around her: foolish, true, but Mrs. Loving is the only person besides Kelly who’s ever given a damn about her for more than a day at a time. And she’s here, in the whorehouse, bargaining back and forth with the Slotters- for them! Who’s ever bargained for them, like they had real value? When they leave, Robin feels the urge to put her hand into Mrs. Loving’s, to thank her for saving them, but she pulls back. It’s no good to make herself too vulnerable, after all, and Kelly might object. Instead, she stays watchful and quiet, calls Mrs. Loving “Ma” like she was asked, and curls happily against the warmth of her side, like a puppy sleeping beside its mother. Tomorrow may bring more changes, may even take them far from here and from their new protector, but for now Robin knows instinctively that they are safe.


End file.
